The imminent appointment of Malky Mackay as Crystal Palace manager is set to split the club’s fan base in two. Filling the huge boots of an experienced and successful Palace manager such as his predecessor, Tony Pulis, will be a tall order for the Scotsman, but he will need the fans both united and on-side from the word go.
To say that Palace and Mackay have a slight ‘history’ would be dramatic, but perhaps ‘fractious’ would be a better adjective to describe the previous relationship between the newly acquainted pair. From the ‘war of words’ with then Palace manager, Dougie Freedman, preceding the 2nd leg of the League Cup Semi-Final with Cardiff City in 2012 centring on the debate of which club was considerably richer, to Mackay’s flat out refusal to even talk to Palace about the vacant manager’s job last November, it would appear that Mackay will have to be on his ‘Sunday best’ in his initial dealings with all in SE25.
Malky Mackay was either naively loyal, badly advised or just plain stubborn in refusing to communicate with Palace last year. With fellow ex-Cardiff employee and friend Iain Moody the newly installed Sporting Director at Selhurst Park, like now, it would have appeared the Palace job was only his to lose. That he had no interest in walking away from South Wales was testament to both his personal pride, and loyalty to the cause, but the City owner Vincent Tan suffers no fools – no pun intended – and he fired Mackay in the most humiliating, merciless way possible.
Controversial chairmen and club owners are of course not entirely unique to Mackay’s former employer. Of course, the two cannot be compared, but love him or hate him, the front man of the Palace ownership, Steve Parish, is forming something of a reputation. An image that could incur the charges of interference, and traits of a certain ‘undermining’ of his manager. For some of the stories of ‘Pulis gate’ emanating from SE25 would infer that Parish very much had his own ideas as to which players Pulis would bring into the club, and which ones he certainly wouldn’t.
It is, of course, unclear as to whether or not these stories hold any mileage, but if true, it would be a working environment that Mackay would both know, understand and be ready for at Palace. He may have to draw upon his experience of working under a ‘hands on’ boss before, tempered very sweetly by taking instruction from the middle man, his best pal, Mr Moody, but it would appear that now is finally Mackay’s chance in the Palace hot-seat.
But what can Palace really expect to achieve under Mackay? Well, after cutting his managerial teeth in the Championship at Watford, he moved to City with the strict brief of delivering a long awaited, “no expenses spared” promotion to the Premier League. Initially, he was successful, and delivered the Bluebirds to the League Cup Final, where after squeezing past Palace in an all-Championship semi-final, he tasted heartbreak at Wembley, with City losing to Liverpool on penalties. Further summer investment would follow, and yet another desperate promotion push. Which this time was achieved, with the League title to boot.
With the sole intention of maintaining the club’s top flight status, Tan lavished Moody and Mackay with a large transfer war-chest, which would eventually be the downfall of the duo. Tan issued bizarre and harsh claims of “irresponsible spending” against Moody and Mackay, which would of course lead to their enforced departures within the early months of the campaign.
Malky Mackay will arrive in SE25 under no illusions whatsoever of any kind of “spend up” before the end of the transfer window. He will do what Pulis stubbornly refused to, and be given the task of bringing Parish’s favourite Wilfried Zaha back to the club, whether on a season long loan, or a more expensive permanent deal. Fan-favourite Zaha’s return would of course appease fans, and go some way to easing Mackay’s expected rocky path into the club.
Success this season is realistically going to be surviving another relegation dogfight. Rightly or wrongly, Parish and the board are not going to throw a lot of money at mid-table obscurity. But with all of the upheaval already this campaign, Palace and its’ fans are on a huge learning curve once again, as is Malky Mackay. Another new dawn. Mackay is a manager with it all to prove.
Hopefully though, he will be backed to the hilt by both fans and his bosses, but time will be the only way to see how this particular journey unfolds.
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